


Take Me To Church

by imnotherehonest



Series: Work in Progress [2]
Category: Rise (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 01:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14367642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imnotherehonest/pseuds/imnotherehonest
Summary: Simon used to like Confession. The familiar ritual of it, the quiet. It was safe. But lately, everything going on with Jeremy has him hesitant and feeling lost. With the kiss in the carpark at the forefront of his mind, Simon seeks solace in Church.More of Simon's internal workings, trying to make sense of his situation.





	Take Me To Church

**Author's Note:**

> Again, please forgive any Britishisms. (And I refuse to acknowledge the production of tea without a kettle, even though I am informed Americans do not tend to have them.)
> 
> And just in case folks don't remember, Father Cahill is the catholic minister that Simon's parents call in to try to talk him out of Spring Awakening.

“Forgive me father for I have sinned.” Simon used to like confession. He used to like the quiet, the peace, the cool darkness of the confession booth. He used to like the feeling of relief that came with admitting to the little sins that had spotted his world: Stealing a biscuit from the cupboard when he was hungry. Feeling envious of the little girl next door when she got a trampoline for Christmas. Arguing back against his parents when he wanted to stay up just a little longer to play with Emma.

Father Cahill is a good listener. He’s patient, he doesn’t rush confessions. He’s always told Simon that he won’t be judged for what he says, that it won’t go any further; that confession is sacred and safe.

But recently it’s all felt wrong.

He knows he is supposed to tell Father Cahill about every single sin. He needs to confess, and repent, and be forgiven. Nothing has ever been this secret before.

He knows he’s stalling, but Father Cahill stays quiet. Not a sound. Not a breath.

The wood of the confession booth is smooth and cool under Simon’s fidgeting hands. The knots in the wood almost look like faces, watching, waiting.

“It has been one month since my last confession.” The words feel distant. The wooden faces are staring, judging. His throat seems to dry up. Usually Simon goes to confession more often. Will Father Cahill have noticed? Will he know there’s something more going on?

“Go on, Simon.” Simon nearly jumps out of his skin. The words are quiet and gentle. They should be reassuring. Instead Simon finds his heart pounding in his chest.

“I don’t –” His voice cracks. Throat tight, mouth dry, eyes prickling. Suddenly he wants to be somewhere else. “Sorry.” The whisper is strangled in his throat. He forces himself to take a breath, forces himself to shove back the wetness in his eyes, in his throat. Father Cahill’s voice is soft.

“Simon,” he says. The teenager startles again. “You know, I could use a cup of tea. And I think maybe you could too.” Guilt and shame are building behind Simon’s eyes. He swallows, forces himself to take a breath. “Will you come with me?” Father Cahill continues.

Simon finds himself nodding. The shame flares. Stupid. He can’t be seen through the screen. He forces his throat to release a sound of confirmation, not trusting his voice. There is a rustle of cloth, and Simon scrubs at his eyes, forcing himself to take another breath. He shoves his shoulders down and orders his body to move, to stand. He can’t meet the Father’s eyes, but the man smiles regardless and Simon tries to make his face return the gesture. His face twitches uncertainly.

The church is dark and quiet, just the gentle brush of light through painted glass giving the large space a warmer feel than the ambient temperature would otherwise allow. Simon distracts his eyes with the familiar vaulted ceiling, the solid pews he has spent every Sunday perched on for as long as he can remember. He tries to pull himself together one breath at a time, one foot in front of another. Tries to force his shoulders to relax, his heart to slow. Tries to force down the fear strangling his throat.

He follows the older man on auto pilot. Past the lecterns and the hymn books, past the looming candle sticks and stone pillars. Simon blinks as they step through into the light of outside. The sun is warm on his face and he stops for a fraction of a second to breathe it in. Somehow it doesn’t reach the cold fear gnawing at his sternum.

Father Cahill is wearing his customary black suit and collar despite the sun shining outside. He looks back to check that Simon is still following. The flecks of silver starting in his short beard catch the light, lines on his face casting dark shadows. Simon feels ridiculously young.

The rectory building is next door to the church. Before Father Cahill had come to Stanton it had been pristine but tired, like the priest that had left it. The tiny front garden had been pruned within an inch of life, everything constrained to it’s space, bark chippings holding weeds at bay around stately roses. The house had been bare. White walls, paint just flaking at the edges from age. Bare wood of the kitchen table, scarred with years of use but scrubbed spotless. Everything inside had looked as old as the 86 year old man who lived there.

That had changed when Father Cahill arrived. The garden was green, fresh, alive. Sometimes Emma and Simon’s mum would come and pick flowers from the sprawling sweet peas which appeared without fail in the summer. The house was somehow just more than it had been in years. A brush of paint had dispatched the greying white, and each room was a soft new colour. There was always a fresh tablecloth, a kettle constantly bubbling for tea, brightly coloured flowers in a vase on the windowsill. It was a welcoming place, a celebration of home.

Today it felt too bright. The dark of the confession booth had suited the feeling crawling under Simon’s skin. The need to hide. In Father Cahill’s bright kitchen there was nowhere to hide.

The priest was humming under his breath as he filled the kettle. Methodically retrieving mugs from the top cupboard, reaching for the tin of tea that lived on the surface top. Milk from the fridge, a spoonful of sugar in one cup for Simon, the kettle steaming.

Simon hovered awkwardly, watching, waiting.

Hot water into the mugs, the gentle clink of spoon on porcelain. The priest started to talk. Simon tried to swallow the fear rising in his throat.

“Now,” said Father Cahill finally, gesturing for Simon to take a seat. “Tell me about the latest play!” The conversational tone somehow took Simon by surprise. Somehow he had been expecting accusations. He took a tentative sip of his tea.

“It’s, it’s good,” Simon started. Father Cahill had always loved theatre. He directed the children’s pantomime every year. He came to every school performance in the area if he could, and he always enthused to Simon afterwards. The priest smiled, and Simon started to feel normality creep back. “Mr Mazzou is a really good director,” Simon smiles despite himself and takes another sip of tea, letting the warm liquid soothe his churning insides. He thinks back to the latest rehearsal; the happiness on the faces of his friends, the massive improvement in the orchestra, Miss Wolfe nodding at Lillete encouragingly. Father Cahill nods and smiles as Simon recounts the little nudges of encouragement, Mr Mazzou’s belief in the play and in each of the cast.

He remembers the moment when Mr Mazzou had caught him in the corridor to suggest they change the play. The catch of fear, but somehow the anger feeling clean and right as he argued back. _With all due respect, don’t you dare._ He hesitates and then tells that story too.

There’s a flicker of something in Father Cahill’s eyes, something like pride, and Simon feels a tug of hope. The priest had always spoken to Simon about the honesty and truth expressed in acting, about the importance of giving voice to the realities of life, no matter the subject matter.

Simon has always prided himself on telling those stories, in breathing life into those stories. He has always believed in honesty, in truth.

He wants to speak. He wants to be open. He wants to be honest.

_I want you to be honest!_ Jeremy’s words echo in Simon’s head. His heart aches with it. His breath catches at the deep hurt tugging at his insides.

Father Cahill has to have seen the change in Simon’s face, but he stays quiet, eyes thoughtful.

“Father…” Simon tails off, panic rearing again, obscuring the urge to lean into the simplicity of just being. “I don’t know what to do.” It escapes as a whisper. Simon stares into the dregs of his empty mug, trying to will away the way his lips have started to tremble, the prick of tears. He closes his eyes and clenches his teeth, and fights the urge to sniff.

The priest stays silent. Simon can feel eyes on the top of his head, thinking. Simon wants to curl in on himself. He wants to let himself talk, he wants to hide, he wants Father Cahill to understand and he wants everything to just stop. He wants to talk to Lillete, he wants to laugh about how ridiculous he’s being. He wants Jeremy, blue eyes and soft lips and that smile that lights up his face like he’s the only person in the world. He wants that feeling when they’re together, when Jeremy is close, when Jeremy kissed him. But he wants his family. He wants the comfortable conversations at dinner, he wants his father looking proud and his mother happy and smiling. He wants not to feel scared and he wants everything to just make sense again.

“You are not alone, Simon.” The teenagers gaze flickers up to the grey eyes watching him. Father Cahill’s voice is calm, steady. “You don’t have to talk to me about whatever it is that is bothering you, but you are not alone.” Simon does sniff now, the hollow feeling in his chest is aching. He feels very alone.

“You may feel like you don’t know what to do Simon, but you have a good heart and you have a smart mind.” The priest is still talking and Simon lets the words wash through him. “I have always believed that God guides us through our conscience, our gut, our feelings. You need to trust in yourself, Simon, trust God to guide you.” Simon wants to drink those words, he wants to let himself scrub off all of the fear and misery and soothe all of the panic and fear.

“What if –” he blurts before he can catch himself. He swallows. Now he needs to finish. “What if other people don’t –” He can’t quite get the words out again, but Father Cahill hums gently.

“Sometimes you have to do what feels right, even when other people are saying something else.” The man stops and considers Simon for a moment.  “Sometimes those other people just might be your parents.” Father Cahill picks up his tea. Simon can’t hold his gaze and lets his eyes escape to the window.

There’s a knock on the door. Father Cahill looks up, and then back at Simon. He smiles kindly. Simon can’t be sure but he thinks he sees something sad in the Father’s eyes.

“Look after yourself, Simon. I’m here if you do want to talk, but just remember that you aren’t alone, okay?” The man stands up, and Simon lets go of a breath he had forgotten he was holding.

He lets himself out the back way. It’s closer to his house and he doesn’t want to face Mrs. Green whose voice travels shrill through the walls of the rectory. He walks slowly. He’s mulling through the whole conversation, trying to wrap his mind around the words.

_Sometimes you have to do what feels right,_ the priest had said. What feels right. _Trust in God to guide you,_ Father Cahill had said. And Simon wanted to. He wanted to let go of all this fear twisting in his gut, he wanted –

_I want you to be honest!_ Jeremy had said. And for a moment Simon had. For a moment Simon had let go of all of the what ifs and just been, just existed. And it had felt so good.  It had felt so right. Feeling Jeremy there, so warm and close had felt so right. Jeremy, whose smile made Simon’s gut flutter. Jeremy, who was kind and worked hard, who had been brave enough and honest enough to face up to whatever it was that was happening between them, who had kissed him in broad daylight and made him want everything he had always told himself he couldn’t have.

Being with Jeremy just felt so right. Right from that first rehearsal, the little jump in his chest when Simon had tentatively placed his hand on Jeremy’s knee, the way Jeremy smiled whenever Simon looked at him, the way Simon wanted to smile back every time. His feelings pulled him to Jeremy.

_God guides us through our conscience, our gut, our feelings._ Father Cahill had sounded so sure. _You need to trust in yourself, Simon._

But other people, his parents. Simon knows what his dad says about, about people who are. Simon can barely bring himself to even think the word gay. A fresh burst of panic quickens his steps as he turns a corner blindly, nearly walking straight into a middle-aged woman with a pram. She frowns, he apologises, she smiles and assures him it’s okay. As he watches her walk away Simon wonders if it could be okay.

Everything Jeremy made him feel, it felt clean somehow. It felt new, it felt good, it felt right. But he can almost hear his father, voice cold as he speaks about the marriage equality ruling. He hears the words unnatural, disgusting, creepy. He hears old Father Thomas giving a sermon the week before he retired, listing the perils of giving into pleasures of the flesh, how sodomy and perversion distort and spoil society. He hears the other kids in French class, giggling and whispering “elle est fat-eee-gay” with glee and just knowing that fat and gay were bad things without even understanding what it meant.

What he had with Jeremy was none of those things. What he felt was not disgusting, it did not feel wrong or bad. And yet, he, Simon, liked Jeremy like that, he wanted Jeremy like that, he wanted to be with Jeremy like that.

_Trust God to guide you._ Father Cahill had said. Simon closed his eyes as he turned onto his street. That, at least, had to be unshakeable. _You are not alone._ Simon took a breath. It had to be enough. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> There you go! Hope you enjoyed. Personally my take on Simon is that his struggle is very internal, and my fics are therefore very much focused that way. But I'm hoping to produce some more scribbles which actually include some more of the outside world too, so watch this space!
> 
> Just a quick (long) note (short-essay) on my take on Father Cahill.  
> I really wanted to portray the positives of Simon's Catholic faith, because I think he does benefit from his belief despite the current internal struggle between his feelings and the rigid approach often taken to homosexuality in Catholicism. I'm really hoping that they don't write off/ dismiss his religion and faith in the show. I went to a Catholic school and even though I am not personally religious, I know how much having a strong faith can help people. Not all Catholics are anti-LGBT, one of my bestfriends from school - one of the kindest, most lovely human beings in the world - is a bisexual Catholic woman and even though she sometimes struggles to balance those two things out, her belief in God gives her hope and strength and a way to make sense of the world and make a difference. So just, be kind to one another, okay?


End file.
